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Oh No, Not Again!

Today is the end of year two, week two at the GSD. My head is still on vacation and I'm slowly getting back into the groove of school.

I spent the summer working at IDEO in San Francisco and Palo Alto, CA as part of their "Smart Space" group which deals with architectural and environmental commissions. It was fantastic to be introduced to IDEO's process, especially their approach to user research, and I enjoyed it quite a bit. Who knew IDEO did architecture?

This was my workspace at IDEO SF most days I was there. There wasn't enough desks to give one to the interns, but I'd take this table by the bay any day.

At the end of August I checked out of IDEO and hopped on a plane to London where I took up a brief research station in the archives of Sir John Soane's House & Museum as part of my fellowship. The staff there were extremely helpful and welcoming and I basically spent 2.5 weeks wearing white gloves and examing original drawings. Of course, now the real work begins as I try to sort through everything and cull relevant, synthetic information from it.

Original bound volume of Sketches and Drawings. They sure knew how to draw back then.

My research project focuses on the spatial development of the enfilade of rooms along the back of the house during the 40-some years that Soane occupied it. Because he was the owner, architect, and resident there are very few drawings of what was actually built at various stages in the history of the house. Sometimes there are full sets of drawings, other time there are definite plans or sections but not both, or even just textual descriptions. When I'm done I will have made a best-guess at what each significant stage of development looked like.

While in London I visited HdM's Laban Dance Center with classmate and eternal BFF BB. Nice corners.

Now, back to the GSD. Once again, I'm sharing a pod with the illustrious Mr. Brown, though this semester, as of now, we have no